- Didn’t sleep great
- Luckily a small tienda was open
- Got a ton of electrolytes
- Had a toilet too
- Leila played with a cat for a while
- Started the climb
- Road up was mostly pretty good
- Rolling foothills
- Pretty stout 2800ft climb up into the mountains
- Very pretty
- Pretty good shade at rest stops
- Super cool “octopus” trees
- Lots of little water crossings
- Met some people from San Fran and they told us about a “spot deep enough to dunk” in
- We kept going and found said spot – the further you went it became an oaisis
- We stayed here the rest of the day
- Oasis was incredible
What Happened
Even with the moon being as bright as it was last night, I still slept okay. Not great by any means, but definitely a little better. Being sick on the tail end of the trip was pretty sucky – but oh well.
We woke up pretty early and watched the sun rise against the mountains behind us and the ocean in front of us. There really was something so special in being able to see the the sun rise so many days on this trip. Leila and I got moving pretty early and I was more than a little worried that the little store I had planned for us to resupply at would be closed still. Somehow and truly against all odds, they were open! We got the water, electrolytes, and last bits of food that we needed as well as used a toliet – which is truly an underrated treat that most US toliets all have lids and you don’t have to squat. Leila got some cat pets in and then we were off!
We had a short stint on the highway and then turned onto a sandy foothilly road. This road would pretty much be the road we were on until we reached San Jose Del Cabo tomorrow. The majority of the foothills were fine. There were some short sandy sections and some nice climbs followed by good descents. For the most part, we spent a large part of the morning gaining elevation only to ride down the other side – suffiec to say that I was not a fan of this. Around 11am or so, we reached the base of the climb. We had run into a couple right at the base – who were oddly against talking – and then quickly continued up! We had ~2,800ft of climbing that we would need to do today. The majority of the climb was uneventful. We ran into another couple who were having a much worse time – they were on gravel bikes (read no suspension and smaller tires) who were pushing their bikes up the same road. We stopped to say high, they gave us a sticker, and then we were back to climbing. Leila certainly seemed to have an easier time – I was sweating like a dog with some of the most intense salt stains showing up on my shorts, shirt, and fanny pack. There were a few times that we had stopped to look at the most incredible trees – the root systems really seemed to flow like water down the rocks and sometimes they had these huge arches in the root systems where you could see all the way through them.
The first two thirds of the climb were categorized by stream crossings – which was an absolute blessing and a huge curse. The road chose to follow these streams and so we were constantally going up a very steep and loose road, climbing a few hundred feet, and then going right back down to the stream. This beat me down pretty good. The last third of the ride was just incredibly steep. My bike probably weighed close to 80lbs today and it was much easier for me just to push through the pain in my legs than it was to push my bike up the loose and sandy road. Eventually we did make it to the top with one of the last views of the Pacific ocean that I would see. From here we mostly started our descent – there were a few small climbs that we would still have to do, but nothing too major. We were also on the lookout for a ‘pool big enough to fully submerge in’ that we had been told out. By now it was the heat of the day and we were both feeling it pretty good.
We pedaled for a little while – stopping every few hundred feet to fix or stop something from falling off of our bikes – before eventually making it to the last stream crossing. The water did not look that great on first inspection. There was a lot of plant material that we could see and some of the water was not flowing that much. Earlier in the day, we had decided that we would not be making a push into town, so we really wanted to find a camp where we had access to water. We decided to at least wait out the heat of the day at this stop. I washed my clothes in the small stream of moving water and eventually worked up the muster to dunk my whole body in. We at lunch and sat mostly sunbathing without exploring too much. We had seen another car come near where we were and they had a cooler which made us think that there was a swimming hole near by.
We decided to walk up the wash we were sitting in and loe and behold there was an entire oasis which we had not seen. There were deep swimming holes, plent of snakes to scare us out of said holes, and sandy beaches to set up camp on. We were a little upset that we had not explored earlier, but were happy to have found it at all. We moved the bikes up to a beach – there was a small trail away from the boulders that crowded the wash we were able to use – and then set up camp. The rest of the evening was spent exploring the wash, tring and failing to draw, and taking pictures during sunset around us.
After spending so much of my biking either near the beach or in the desert this oasis felt like such a treat. I was telling Leila how different the riding had been today compared to the rest of the trip. Sure there were some days where you were riding next to the most grand of mountains, covered in some of the greenest cactus that I have ever seen, but there was zero water and no escape from the heat. To think that most people likely skip right by this oasis due to it being so close to town where most people start, was incredibly sad but also made the find that much more special. I got to really think about doing the route ‘the opposite’ way. I truly did not have a single experience where I thought ‘man that would have been so much better the other way’. I felt lucky that everyone going the ‘regualr’ way had to pass me and I got to say hi to them! I also got to experience so much beauty during the first few days of my trip and really take it slow – I am sure that I could have done this going the other way too. But most of all I now have firsthand experience about an area that I had only dreamed about before – nothing can beat that.
Originally recorded on 2026-01-03.